Author: Hassan Gimba

I DO not want to believe that in a country of close to 250 million people, I am the only one who thinks there is a gathering of ominous dark clouds over our dear country beginning from the North. I cannot afford that foolish and lazy thought even if I wanted to dream so, because it is that type of thinking that brought us to this sorry pass. Yes. Not long ago, we had a leader who believed he knew more than everybody and was better than everybody. And surprisingly, many northerners believed he was the only upright person in…

THESE days, the words dominating the air are “hunger” and “protest”. And that, we are told, is because of two others – “dollar” and “salary”. Unfortunately, those capitalising on the latter two words to push for the first two words hardly mention the words “production” and “security” which are fuelled by justice and fairness. And there can be no justice without the rule of law. I suspect some behind-the-scenes push regarding cries of hunger and a subtle mobilisation for protests that would engulf the entire country. While not discounting the fact that there is massive hunger in town, it is…

(Readers’ Reactions) SALAAMU alaykum. I saw your tribute to late Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, may Allah (SWT) grant him mercies with jannatul firdaus. I read it today and was touched by your powerful pen. Your late father, Sulaiman Gimba Ahmed, was a humble and quiet person who worked with me in 1979 while I was Commissioner of Agriculture during Governor Muhammadu Goni’s administration. ⁠He was in charge of the Borno State Water Board under my ministry. (He was acting Perm Sec and at the same time first GM of the state water board). And that is why I asked for…

ADAMU Maina Waziri is one politician most people misunderstand. He is one man who does not suffer fools and, unlike the typical politician, he shoots from the hip, the reason some saw him as “crude”. His word is his bond; and if you asked him for a favour that he can grant, he would tell you, and if he promised, he would deliver. But if he wouldn’t, he would not bat an eyelid in telling you no. This is not the kind of leader Nigerians want. Nigerians prefer the man who will tell them, “Ah, we did it for others,…

“He had a good heart, see where he died.” “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell “DAGA Allah sai talaka,” (meaning service to the poor after that to God) was his campaign slogan. Bukar Abba Ibrahim was a man whose life was spent in service to the people. This was reflected more in his method of governance that was skewed towards empowering the people. When Yobe State was created in 1991, the state itself was rural and Damaturu, the state capital, was not better than a big village. Elected on the platform of…

NIGERIA is a country of one week, one issue; but insecurity, spreading over the nation like a cancer in a diseased body, remains constant. However, in some ways, a nation’s behaviour tends to reflect that of its leader’s character. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, is that kind of person, especially during the home run in the last presidential election. One week he was fighting off pretenders to the All Progressives Congress presidential ticket and the next he was fighting for his “health”. Throughout the campaign, he was either fighting the Villa cabal against him or crying foul about policies…

AS reporters and analysts, we must inform, based on trends, and where possible, raise the alarm, hoping that those in authority will heed. In 2018, six years ago, that was what I did. And so, this is just a rehash of my article “Insecurity, the North under siege” written on this page on 24 December 2018. Perhaps those concerned did not read it or they were unmindful because they were safe or just that they did not care. Well, now Abuja is a town gasping for breath from the stranglehold of criminals. Read on: The Boko Haram insurgents, once touted…

ON MONDAY, January 8, I lost my mother. She died at the age of 85. Despite the age being ripe, it was still a shock. It is normal for a child to see his parents as immortal despite an ingrained knowledge that every soul shall taste the inevitable – death. She succumbed to a debilitating pulmonary disease, something I think I inherited. She died on the 8 and her husband, Suleiman Gimba Ahmed on the 6 of January 2013. However, I want to talk about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. There was a time when I was hopeful that I could…

LAST week, we got a dose of what investigative journalism ought to be. Umar Audu, a promising young journalist, proved to be an outstanding student of his mentor, Ja’afar Ja’afar, an investigative journalist of the first order. Reporting for Daily Nigerian, Ja’afar’s online newspaper, Umar Audu went underground to bag a degree in Mass Communication from a university in the Benin Republic. It is a report worthy of the highest award in the land for investigative journalism. “This certificate will be delivered to you just like you ordered a pizza or something, and you give them your location, and it…

AN IGBO adage says that when an anomaly persists for one year, it becomes the norm. So slowly, steadily but surely, it is becoming a norm, an accepted aberration, for a president in Nigeria to appoint himself as a minister. It is like saying in a country of 200 million-plus, there is no one good or capable enough to hold that particular office except the man entrusted with the running of the nation. It was President Olusegun Obasanjo that started it. Nicknamed the “Trinity President” in some quarters, for six out of his eight years in office, i.e., from 1999…

RIVERS, a state so rich because God blessed it with an abundance of crude oil and gas, is named after the many rivers that border its territory. Forty per cent of Nigeria’s output of crude oil is produced in the state. It also has deposits of silica sand, glass sand and clay. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), ₦1.93 trillion was raked in, in 2022 as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) across the 36 states in Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory. Out of this, Rivers State generated ₦172.89 billion, second only to Lagos, with ₦651.15 billion. And despite…

IN the first part of this write-up, we saw how in 1983, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), afraid of defeat, capitalised on Shehu Shagari’s perceived likeability and reversed the election timetable and started with a vote for the president. They relied on what they christened the “bandwagon effect” to commit monumental electoral fraud to win, calling it a “landslide” victory, which opponents and critics derisively described as a “moonslide”. We also saw how in 2003, the same fear of losing, the threat from General Muhammadu Buhari’s foray into the presidential race, an altercation with his deputy, Atiku Abubakar, and…

IS there something with the presidential system of democracy we have twice adopted for ourselves that necessitates involving the courts where judges are made to be the ultimate arbiter between contestants? In 1979, it was the judges who decided who emerged as the president between Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Chief Obafemi Awolowo when they told the nation what two-thirds of nineteen should be in a judgment that is more of a compromise between the spirit of the law and political practicality. The requirement to be the president was a majority of votes and national spread, determined by the ability of…

“A corrupt judge is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amok with a dagger in a crowded street. While the man with the dagger can be restrained physically, a corrupt judge deliberately destroys the foundation of society.” – Justice Samson Uwaifo, a retired justice of the Supreme Court. ABOUT two weeks ago, Mr Olumide Akpata, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), at the International Bar Association (IBA) conference in Paris, France, lamented that only by sheer luck will the Nigerian judiciary produce a good judge and that the country is under “judiciary capture.”…

THERE is no Nigerian that will tell you he is not aware of the NLC even if he does not know that it is an acronym for the Nigeria Labour Congress. What the average Nigerian knows about them is that they always go on strike at the drop of a hat, strikes that have lost their meaning because they always achieve almost nothing. Well, there’s nothing in it for the average Nigerian; only for the vanguards of the congress. At least, that is what an average citizen will tell you. This suspicion, or rather an assumption, is fueled by the…

THIS was a speech delivered by Dr Hassan Gimba, publisher of Neptune Prime online newspaper and a syndicated columnist, at the Ebony Herald Hall of Fame and Dignity, held at the Stonehedge Hotel and Suites, Abuja, on 09/11/2023. Ladies and gentlemen, I say good evening to you all. This is not a topic of my choosing, but one given to me by the organisers. Nonetheless, I will try to do justice to it. When we say “renew”, we are talking about restoration, revival, regeneration, rebuilding, repeating, resuming, etc., while “hope” is to anticipate expectations of fulfilment. On the other hand,…

It’s worth noting that this article was originally published on December 3, 2017, yet its relevance persists to this day. The Peoples Democratic Party THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not seriously planning to return to power. It is more focused on the inordinate ambitions of its stakeholders and how much money they can make from each. If Nigeria is on the minds of some of its members, it is regarding what can be made out of it with the party as the vessel. Even at that, they are not ready or desirous of reinventing, re-positioning, and strengthening the vessel.…

SO, Malam Adamu Fika, the Wazirin Fika, is dead. Called home by our Creator who loves man more than man loves himself. When He created the world and everything that is inside it, He made man for a purpose and sent him down to earth to complete the purpose. The purpose of the creation of man is to worship the creator as a way of life. Therefore, our lives and how we conduct our affairs all count on the scales of worship. Imam Ja’afar Assadiq (AS) said: “If you want to know the religion of a man, do not look…

THIS article was first published in December 2017, repeated in August 2018 and September 2020. With change being the only constant in human life, a lot of water has passed under the bridge in our country since then that have made yesterday’s hailers today’s wailers and vice versa. I find this write-up very relevant and perhaps may make us view Nigeria first over many of the things that pull us apart. Hailer and wailer are new terms in our political lexicon. Just as ‘men and women of timber and calibre’ and ‘extraordinary and plenipotentiary’, etc. were introduced in the Second…

FOR five years now, I have been advocating for our currency to be strong rather than for salaries to be increased. Not because those collecting salaries from the government are a minuscule few or because of the tendency that makes the prices of everything skyrocket. No. and not because the implication will push a lot of small and medium-scale businesses to death because they cannot afford it or because even big businesses and the government itself must retrench a lot of staff to accommodate salaries in a growing budget. No. My primary fear is that the more salaries are increased,…